Cutting the Longline to Extinction: New Sea Turtle Campaign Takes Aim at Industrial Longline Fishing and Mercury-Poisoned Seafood

Abstract

Chanting “Get on the right track … stop killing the leatherback!,” a festive protest of people of many ages dressed in colorful turtle costumes wound its way along the busy streets of San Francisco's Fishermen's Wharf. The action last October marked the launching of the Bay Area-based Sea Turtle Restoration Project's Save the Leatherback (www.savetheleatherback.com) campaign for a moratorium on longline fishing in the Pacific Ocean. Longline fishing in the Pacific kills tens of thousands of sea turtles annually to serve up swordfish, shark, and tuna poisoned with high levels of methylmercury for lucrative seafood markets in Japan, the United States, and Europe.